Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Sizing Up Sperm on National Geographic

We watched the most interesting thing on TV last night. Have you heard about it: Sizing Up Sperm on the National Geographic Channel. It was so weirdly fascinating.

What they did was view sperm from a human perspective, so they had people represent the millions of sperm and the trek they take for fertilization. I learned so much! Did you know that only 1% of sperm make it to the cervix? Most will die in the vagina. Beat ya didn't know that?
As we were watching it, we started to feel sorry for the sperm. (I'm sorry, I just laughed as I wrote that.) Only 2-8 sperm, 2-8 out of over 2 million, make it to the fallopian tubes. The female reproductive organs do not help out the sperm at all. It sees them as a foreign subject that must be destroyed. Red blood cells violently attack the sperm that make it into the uterus.

Here are the red cells. Scary, huh?

Jason and I were mesmerized for a whole hour. It was the neatest concept we had ever seen on TV in a long time. Of course it held our attention because it was a journey with struggle, fight and will power. We, as actors, know that any story is good when it has a goal and obstacles to overcome.

The next time it airs is on April 20th. Here's the trailer and, by the way, I'm sorry if any of you reading is grossed out by human, science, medical stuff. My apologies!

2 comments:

  1. I hadn't heard of this, but knew that info. Interesting concept. It's amazing anyone ever gets pregnant. -Jen

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  2. This is so cool. I had no idea that our bodies attacked the little guys. I kind of feel sorry for them too.

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